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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824876">A Good Walk</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteredsins/pseuds/glitteredsins'>glitteredsins</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennandanica/pseuds/jennandanica'>jennandanica</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Citadel: Antony Starr and Stephen Amell [144]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Actor RPF, Arrow (TV 2012) RPF, Banshee (TV) RPF, Canadian Actor RPF, Citadel (Journalfen RPG), New Zealand Actor RPF, The Boys (TV 2019) RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BDSM, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:35:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,092</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteredsins/pseuds/glitteredsins, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennandanica/pseuds/jennandanica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In Citadel, Antony Starr is an AU (alternate universe) character. He tells people he's an IT Risk Management and Computer Security Consultant (his official cover) but really he's a ex-military, sometimes mercenary, computer hacker and master thief hired by collectors and other ruthless people to steal for them: art, jewels, money, information... Citadel knows Antony's true occupation and he would never target the organization or any of its membership. Through Cit, he's met Stephen Amell (played RL) and fallen hard. This is their story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stephen Amell/Antony Starr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Citadel: Antony Starr and Stephen Amell [144]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/303195</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Good Walk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a re-posting (archiving) of all logs for the Antony Starr/Stephen Amell storyline in the BDSM RPS RPG <a href="http://citadel.dreamwidth.org/read">Citadel</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>players only. backdated to 2014. takes place after <a href="https://antony-starr.dreamwidth.org/20932.html">Stephen asks Antony to train him</a>.</b>
</p><p>
  <i>warnings: none</i>
</p><p>It's not a huge island but it's more than big enough to make for a good walk, especially when you're still healing. Antony's carrying water for them both and a couple of beach towels in a backpack, just in case. They take the long way around, years of visitors having scored a good walking path along the beaches and around the perimeter. "Did you talk to Kim yet?" Antony asks, shielding his eyes even with the sunglasses to take a good look at the one boat anywhere near the island. Stephen's been quiet again since this morning and the topic seems a safe one.</p><p>"Tomorrow, I asked him to get together with me tomorrow morning," Stephen pauses as Antony looks out to sea. "I'm hoping we can set something up so I can work out every day after that."</p><p>Antony nods, lowering his hand now that he's certain the boat's moving past them. "He'll be thrilled. He's not used to vacations," he says with a smile.</p><p>"What about you?  You're not exactly the idle type either?"  Stephen tips his head as they resume their slow pace.</p><p>"No, but I like travelling and I can chill on a beach for a few days," Antony says, watching a crab scuttle across their path. "Plus I'm happy with a book or a walk. And even when I'm lazing around, there's usually some plan or idea I'm playing with."</p><p>"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Stephen smiles, chuckling softly. "So what have you been plotting and planning huh?"</p><p>"A couple of things." Although Stephen and their future has been occupying a huge amount of real estate, leaving only crumbs really for anything else. "Maybe buying another gym, expanding the kids program. Taking certain parts of our training and making it something we can sell to other security firms and groups worldwide."</p><p>"And us?" Stephen reaches out to take Antony's hand, entwining their fingers.</p><p>The touch - voluntary as it is - still shocks Antony, even after this morning, and it's all he can do to keep his grip light, the squeeze he gives casual. He glances away, clearing his throat, before answering. "I've been thinking about where we might want our house," he says. "Where you'd find a decent garden in L.A. and there's a few neighbourhoods we can look at. And I was thinking about what you said this morning. Wanting me to train you."</p><p>"Hey it's not like we have to worry about budget is it?" Stephen teases softly. "And yeah, I meant what I said. I want to be trained, like you, like the others." The more he thinks about that the more right it seems.  He can't see a downside; he'd get workouts, it'd be a more realistic edge to his portrayal of Oliver if he goes back to Arrow and he'd feel a whole lot safer.</p><p>"You don't worry about becoming like me?" Antony doesn't have a problem with training Stephen. He's offered before, they'd talked about boxing, martial arts, but he wants to make sure he's not doing more damage than good. That Stephen has realistic expectations for what training can do for him.</p><p>"How can I become like you?  I'm not ex-military, I've not seen or done the things you've done," Stephen turns to look at Antony. "Unless you mean something else? Do you mean something else?"</p><p>Antony shakes his head. "I don't know what I mean," he says, the whole thing more of a feeling than anything he can put actual words to. "I just -- those guys up at the house, me, you know none of us would have been in any better position," he starts to say before realizing that maybe, just maybe, he's full of shit. That if he'd trained Stephen, if Stephen had known how to handle a number of guys all coming at him, really handle them, that he might have got away, he might have been able to make enough noise for enough time for someone to hear or interfere or enough trouble for the fucking assholes to realize they'd picked on the wrong person. Because if they hadn't been worried about handling Antony, they'd have come for Antony. Directly. Fuck.</p><p>Stephen lets the silence lengthen. It's clear from Antony's expression that his husband is working something out in his head.  They move along a little way before he bumps shoulders.  "You've gone quiet on me."</p><p>"It's one of the things we tell people," Antony says softly. "That being trained doesn't necessarily protect you, that it only takes the right moves, the right... situation, and you're in the same position as anyone else. Look at Connor. If he hadn't taken that blow to the head, there's no way they would have been able to handle him so easily. And they needed the numbers and the plan to handle you. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't have been better off if you'd been trained. It might have given you that slight edge, you might have figured out there was something off about Joseph in the first place... or not. But I can at least offer you those skills and they will - in almost all situations - make you safer."</p><p>"And that's what I want, I want to learn to fight to win, at any cost.  I don't want to learn the kind of self-defence I can get at any gym or dojo, I want to know how to put someone down so they stay down."  He's thought it through, knows he needs to toughen up.</p><p>"Even if that means they stay down for good?" Antony needs to know.</p><p>Now it's Stephen's turn to be silent as he thinks that over.  "I think so, yes," he nods eventually. "It doesn't mean I have to do that, but I'd have the option."</p><p>Antony nods, strangely relieved. "I'll make sure you have all the options," he promises. "Which also makes me ask," he gives a soft laugh, shaking his head at himself. "Weapons? Knives? Guns? You don't have to carry but do you want to know how to handle them?"</p><p>"Yes, to all of that," Stephen smiles. "I mean I get to play with replicas at work, but yes, I want to be more than capable with them all."  He pauses for a moment before asking.  "You're feeling your way here, I can tell, what did you think I meant?"</p><p>"What you said this morning, about making you like me, not wanting to be at anyone's mercy ever again..." Antony blows out a breath. "We've talked so much about me needing to change, being a better man, being too cold about the things I've done, and I was worried. I thought maybe you were asking me to make you colder, make it so you can't be hurt, so you're invincible, and training doesn't do that."</p><p>Stephen snorts at that, though the sound lacks humour. "No one is invincible, Antony.  Look how easily Janko got to you, hard ass that you are. And if you really think I could be cold, cold enough to kill someone... then you don't know me as well as you think you do. This is me, Antony, I'm still me, even after this.  At least I think I am... mostly."</p><p>Antony nods, not at all certain he could say the same thing about his own captivity. "I'm glad to hear that," he says. "But that's why I was feeling my way through. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page - that I still did know you and what you needed. I've fucked up enough already. I don't want to keep doing that moving forward."</p><p>"I can't say there won't be things that have changed in me, or will change, I know there are, I'm still feeling my way through all of this.  Not just about me, but us, my future, all of it.  So keep questioning, because fuck knows I am," Stephen blows out a breath at that.</p><p>"I will," Antony says, giving Stephen's hand another squeeze, this one firmer. "We can keep questioning together. Figure out what's right for us both."</p><p>"Do you think this has changed you? Or will?  Apart from the work stuff, I mean personally..."  Stephen's been so wrapped up in his own issues with what he went through he's not given a huge amount of thought about how it's affected Antony, apart from the obvious strain in their relationship.</p><p>"Of course." It sounds like such a flippant answer yet it's anything but. "A month ago, I felt on top of the fucking world. Like I had everything and knew my place in the scheme of things. Now?" He shrugs. "I don't think I've felt this... adrift... since after my own captivity. I have no solid idea of what things will look like a year from now. I just know I want to be with you and I'm trusting like crazy everything else will come together." He smiles at Stephen. "That's a lot of faith and acceptance for someone like me."</p><p>"This has brought it home to me how fucking transient it all is.  Life, love, career.  And it can all be shaken, broken in the space of a few hours."  Stephen pulls up and indicates he wants to sit for a moment, a tree offering them some shade. "So fuck it, fuck it all.  I can tell you this much, a year from now I'll be out, a year from now I'll be stronger, mentally and physically, a year from now I'll be in a new home.  And I hope, a year from now, you and I will be in a much better place."</p><p>Antony spreads out a towel for them and takes a seat beside Stephen, their shoulders touching. He hands over a bottle of water, thinking through what Stephen's said. "It sounds like there were a lot of things you were unhappy with, or wanted to change, deep down," he says quietly. "Were you happy with us? With how we were?"</p><p>Stephen turns his head and squints at his husband.  "I'm not sure how you concluded that from what I said, but I think in hindsight, I wasn't happy with myself.  I was very happy with us for the most part, given the elephant in the room that was your work.  I was happy in our dynamic as much as my own insecurities let me be.  I think what we had, what you'd given me was so much more than I had ever hoped for that I accepted it all, without really thinking about if it was what was best for me, or if I was really happy.  You swept me off my feet Antony, you were a fucking dream come true, and I just went with it, when perhaps I should have taken it slower, should have put myself first more often."</p><p>"What would that have looked like?" Antony asks. "Putting yourself first more often."</p><p>"Just something as simple as asking more questions, asking for time to consider things, I don't know. I'm not saying you've ever pushed me, on the contrary if I've ever asked for time and space you've given it to me.  But I wonder if I allowed myself to get swept along too easily, was too eager to please without pausing to check in with myself.  I don't think our life together would have looked much different if I had, as I said, I was happy with us, I just wasn't always happy with myself." Stephen sighs and rubs over his brows with his thumb and forefinger.  "Am I even making sense? Or am I upsetting you?"</p><p>"No, you're making sense and you're not really telling me anything I didn't know, at least a little," Antony says, thinking he tried to do his best by Stephen, make sure they were both equal and willing participants in everything they did kink-wise and in their life together. But he'd known Stephen struggled with self-doubt and believing he could come first for anyone. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, that they're here, that he's scared, that he hasn't really stopped being scared since Stephen was taken. Fear of losing Stephen hadn't stopped with getting him physically back. It had only increased. And for a man known for his lack of fear, for his control of his emotions, feeling like this is devastating. Not that he lets on. "Just -- do you regret marrying me?"</p><p>Stephen's head comes up at that. "Oh Tony, no, no I don't," he says softly. He lifts his hand to cup Antony's cheek. "I've spent time hating you, being angry at you, frustrated at you over all of this... but under it all, I knew I still needed you.  I told you, I want to save our marriage, and trust me with what I've been through I wouldn't be putting my very limited emotional energy into it if I wasn't absolutely sure I about that."</p><p>Antony tears up almost instantly. The use of his pet name, Stephen's words... his touch... Antony had almost not even asked the question, he was so terrified of the answer, but now he's so fucking grateful he did. He leans into Stephen's touch, not even trying to hide his reaction. "I love you so much," he whispers.</p><p>"I know you do," Stephen returns softly. "And it's what's kept me together since you came and got me, just like I knew you would."</p><p>Antony exhales, relief washing over him. He's never really lost hope that they would be able to get through this but doubt's been hovering, eating away at him, gnawing at his certainty. "Okay." He nods. "So in a year, a new home, no more hiding, feeling stronger, putting yourself first more and us in the best place we've ever been."</p><p>"Good goals to have huh?  What about you, what do you want to change?  Want to implement?"  Stephen lets his hand fall away but he keeps close, their shoulders and knees pressed together.  "And I've done a lot of emotional offloading, you? Not so much..."</p><p>"We've talked about my changes," Antony points out. "Retooling my company, getting my people sorted out... what kind of emotional offloading am I supposed to do? You're the one who went through this."</p><p>"Did I go through it on my own then?" Stephen retorts in a way he wouldn't have dreamed of before this.  "Or is there another reason you've shed more tears in the last two weeks than in all the rest of the time I've known you?  Or that you're carrying tension in your shoulders so tight I just know you're going to start having pain in the right one soon enough?  So it hasn't affected you that your husband and boy was abducted, abused and nearly raped and your marriage is damaged?"   He shakes his head.  "You can lie to yourself all you like Antony.  But you can't lie to me, not anymore."</p><p>"Of course it's affected me," Antony says, his lips set in a grim line. "But it feels like I'm whining to go on about how I'm feeling. Like I shouldn't be making this about me and how I feel."</p><p>"I've invited you, as my husband, to share your feelings with me because we were, we are, in this together it didn't just happen to me, it happened to <i>us</i>," Stephen counters. "And if you don't talk to me, how can I feel we're equal in this?  We're supposed to lean on each other, it's a two-way street.  And you may be some hard ass bastard but to me?  You're my tender, loving, sometimes romantic Tony."</p><p>Antony gives a small smile at that but it still takes him another few seconds to start. "I've been scared shitless," he says. "Terrified of losing you, losing the life we've made together. I've always been confident I could find my way, deal with anything that needs dealing with, but the thought of losing you... and I went in there knowing that, that you were probably going to hate me and walk right out of my life anyway, that my life as I'd known it was ending. That even though I could get you out, I was probably still going to lose you. And I've spent these last few weeks still terrified, maybe more terrified, because I kept getting these glimmers of hope and then something would happen and they'd disappear." He blows out a breath. "I was scared to ask you about our marriage, about regretting it, but I'm glad I did. This is the best I've felt since everything went down."</p><p>"And you've been so strong for me," Stephen takes Antony's hand and lifts it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles. "It's been a rough ride, and it might still be difficult for a while yet as we negotiate our new reality.  I may have ended up in there because of what you do, but it was you, you and the guys that got me out of there."</p><p>Antony watches as Stephen kisses his fingers, his heart clutching tight and he nods. "I think it might take me a while to stop being scared," he confesses. "I'm still the hard ass bastard and my guys don't know any different - except maybe Marcus - but all of this? It put a serious crack in this wall I put up way back and I'm having a hell of a time patching it."</p><p>"Do you need to patch it?  Is it so terrible to be human?"  Stephen asks gently.  "Is it so terrible to let your husband know how much he means to you beyond all the good stuff?  Would it be so terrible to allow me to hold you once in a while so you can be vulnerable?"</p><p>"It's not terrible," Antony says, shaking his head. "It's just terrifying." He gives a small laugh. "It'll take me some time to get used to it." He looks at Stephen. "Maybe that's my goal."</p><p>"We've got some work to do, both individually and together, but if we just take it one day at a time, and we talk to each other..."  He bumps against his husband then tips his head to rest on Antony's shoulder.</p><p>Antony presses his lips to Stephen's temple, his heart lighter and his chest lighter than they've been in weeks. It's going to take time but they'll be okay. Maybe even better than okay.</p><p>[feedback welcome. comments screened.]</p>
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